Best Production
For me, the importance here is both best quality, but also distinction in aesthetic and creativity. So with that in mind there are many honourable mentions. Serial Experiments Lain, Key the Metal Idol, and Tekkonkinkreet are all worthy mentions for their own idiosyncratic productions. The Case of Hana and Alice (2015) was fascinating as it was actually a rotoscope production, the animation drawn over the filmed footage which created its own unique look. The Burning Buddha Man (2013) in contrast, animated by one man, was created using cut out paper figures and sets, worthy for its own distinct aesthetic. Even Gundam Reconguista in G (2014-5), despite the story and characterisation being a mess, has to be mentioned as Sunrise, as a studio able to show how seriously they take their work, lovingly put together a giant robot sci-fi story where every character design and machine onscreen, even the locations, are distinct and of a high production quality.
5) Sarazanmai (2019) begins the list with emphasis on how a bold visual look alongside production quality is of an essence. Kunihiko Ikuhara, co-directing with Nobuyuki Takeuchi, has a very distinct style especially when he returned to animation in the 2010s of bold visual colours, and especially an emphasis on symbolism and very distinct pop-surrealist aesthetic to his productions. It is for his both messages, and here to give Amazon a kicking, but using visual signals to tell the story with effortlessness. The fact that he uses recycled footage, a common aspect from his career, becomes part of the rhythm and style of his work, alongside the production staff being on top form here, so that never becomes an issue.
4) X - The Movie (1996), Rintaro's CLAMP adaptation, is deeply flawed. It is a title in a strange position, as the original manga was never finished, and the only other adaptation, for television and also having to create its own ending, was the only series by Yoshiaki Kawajiri of all people. X - The Movie however is a thing of beauty, a dark Gothic work which is made at the pinnacle of theatrical animation, violent and macabre in juxtaposition with its urban metropolis setting. In spite of so many flaws, there are moments in this in cinematic language alongside the art which are stunning to still witness.
3) Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985) is ironically also an adaptation of an unfinished text, though one which survived with a semblance of an ending. A fantasy about an intergalactic train that [spoiler] carries the dead and the supernatural, the issue with adapting this text is how; to which at first the production struck upon the curious idea of making most of the characters humanoid cats, becoming an iconic aspect of the film. Beyond this, whilst I have praised Rintaro's film, the eighties was when there was so much money available for the animation industry, many elaborate productions like this one could come to exist, this a thing of beauty. The material itself allows for many distinctions, from the scenarios to author Kenji Miyazawa's deliberate European interests including a fascination for Esperanto, but everyone who made the film paid perfect homage to the author's work with its quiet grace.
2) Fittingly on the list twice, Ikuhara has only made one theatrical film so far. When given the budget, he made Adolescence of Utena (1999), a gorgeous and surreal spectacle where his imagination was allowed to run. Literally, he builds a fairytale world, alongside the staff at studio J.C. Staff, of a school that constantly shifts in form, only to destroy it at the end in the midst of what even baffled the animators they would have to animate, a car chase that turns into one of the biggest and symbolically rich sequences in anime I have seen.
1) However, whilst a bit unfair to have the sole Studio Ghibli title covered so far take the top spot, there is a reason that studio has become an institution, and Isao Takahata's Pom Poko (1994), an obscure title from Ghibli, is raising the bar so high for anime covered in terms of production it really should have the nod. It is easy for any animation studio to lazily put together a work about an environmental message about raccoons - it is another, alongside the moral complexity at hand in this tale alongside its tributes to Japanese folklore, to make a film this visually vibrant and rich too, likely to have been as painstaking as every title given a nod. (Even Mars of Destruction (2005), on the opposite end of the scale in quality, probably took labour to create just to imagine how much longer this and any other highly regarded animated work took). Everything nominated is a winner, unique, so really any of these would have rightly earned this spot depending on the candidates.
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Best OVA/ONA/Short
3) It might be a controversial choice, but I did not cover a great deal that could qualify for this category last year, and Calamity of a Zombie Girl (2018) against a complete lack of expectations was a surprise pleasure. Goofy, nasty, peculiar and a lot of cheese, but the right kind of cheese that itched a desire for weird pulpy anime I have always had. Ever since second hand DVDs led me down the rabbit hole of Manga Entertainment's tackier past, or even the odder licensing choices regardless of tone, a Blu Ray release in 2020 in the United Kingdom for a title like this still took my interest.
Calamity is a throwback to older OVAs as, when it gets violent, you get actual internal organs drawn, but rather than be just a gross piece of work, it comes off more interesting by deliberately throwing off your moral compass on who to root for, and a lot of black comedy. Some of it is clearly deliberate, like someone having to super glue their head back on, and stuff that might have not been, like someone else having their arm ripped off but shrugging it off as they flee the scene with blood trailing them. It is an acquired taste, mainly for the art style, but inexplicably released in 2020 by Anime Limited, I hope they and other companies take this risk as, if any other odd titles like this are still being made and are actually of interest, I would be happy for more of them available in the United Kingdom.
2) Yuri Seijin Naoko-san (2010/2012), two OVAs for the price of one, are a weird but memorable duo. The first is six minutes of pure madness, the second, the length of a regular TV movie, is sedate and sweet even though it is tap dancing a really tasteless joke or two, like the main female alien being attracted to young girls, somehow managing to fall out of the other side positively because of how strange and whimsical it still is, right down to the group of young girls who hire themselves out just to appear on location in the background. Whether this premise could extend to a whole series, which would be fascinating as a what-if. Whilst entirely speculation without reading the source material, I would be enticed if one was made in the near future, abruptly appearing in the 2020s out of the blue.
1) But Key the Metal Idol (1994-7) has to take this award. An insanely ambitious project, what is actually a TV series length narrative told through the OVA medium, with the budget and lack of restrictions to tell a very idiosyncratic and emotional drama, starting from a robot girl who wants to become an idol singer to be able to still exist, only to become much darker and more abstract as the show continues. Its structure and release did cause problems, requiring two feature length final episodes, the first a possible moment that could put off viewers as it needs to deal with all the back-story and plot that was kept at arm's length deliberately before, but the final episode gets surreal, tragic with the death of a specific character, and became a discover for me. Availability is interesting and frustrating - Discotek have released this, and it's one of their few titles to be available on the British Crunchyroll stream, but it is an argument to figure out how on hell I can import anime titles from the States as it really won me over.
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